


old but i'm not that old, young but i'm not that bold

by arbhorwitch



Series: everything that kills me makes me feel alive [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Canon, rule number one of fight club: don't hit your lab partner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:21:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbhorwitch/pseuds/arbhorwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt is many things. Tactical isn't always one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	old but i'm not that old, young but i'm not that bold

Sometimes he hates being able to feel, because being able to feel means getting angry, and every time he’s angry it turns to _shit_.

He doesn’t mean for it to go down like this but it does: he talks, he argues, he rants, he snaps, and before he knows it, he’s in Hermann’s face and yelling shrieking _desperate_ and Hermann is fighting right back, nearly shoving his cane in Newt’s face to create distance; they’re loud and furious and obnoxious, boundary lines don’t exist, and there’s a voice in the back of his head telling him to stop, stop, stop this isn’t worth it but he _can’t_ because he’s right, always has to be the one to prove it. He has theories written on scraps of paper and the back of his hand, on a whiteboard in the corner of the room with stained greens and blues, on the lid of a coffee cup from a shop in the Boneslums of Tokyo. He’s got theories and theories and solutions, too, but it doesn’t matter if he can’t explain to the one person who maybe, might, _has_ to understand.

So he yells. And he uses his hands, grabs Hermann’s shirt and bunches it between his fingers, and he can’t tell if he’s shaking the other man or if it’s just his own nerves playing traitor.

They can ask him if he’s taken his meds, and he’ll say yes; that will be a lie. They _could_ ask him if the meds are working, and he’ll say no, and that won’t be so much of a lie because no one knows his brain better than he does. Hermann will blame the mood swings and Newt’s lack of control, and Newt will argue that sometimes it’s just frustrating. The psyche evals say different, but Newt is sick of people trying to get inside of his mind and pick and prod, so he’ll tell them to fuck off and Hermann will exaggerate the truth; they argue, and when they write Newt’s biography, they’ll say he was a mad genius.

For now—for now, Newt is losing his mind, and it’s a shitty feeling all around because there’s a pounding at the base of his skull and an ache in between his eyes, too much caffeine in his system and not enough sleep, and he’s ready to kill a kaiju with his bare hands if it means Hermann will just _listen_.

And then Hermann says, “Stop being moronic and grow _up_ , Newton,” and Newt can handle a lot of things but—but Hermann is his equal, his only equal, and to be called out is a slap to his face that stings and bleeds with bitterness, so he bites his tongue and grips harder. His voice is lodged in his throat; if looks could kill, Hermann would be a mangled mess on the floor and Newt isn’t sure if he’d feel any guilt over it or not.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he manages; don’t treat me like a child, don’t treat me like a burden, because you’re no better than me you’re _not_ , and it hurts in all the ways a stab to the spine and a messy cut across the throat hurts. At least Hermann looks vaguely uncomfortable as his words register, or perhaps it’s over Newt’s struggle with his _own_ words, pouring salt over an open wound and letting the air bite it. He hates Hermann with every bone in his body yet can’t let go of the challenge, of the need to show that he’s more than textbooks-and-lab-coats, and this is ridiculous in every sense of the word. Newt is ready to scream; at some point, the door to the lab opens and suddenly there are hands where hands should not be, gripping his biceps and pulling him back.

“ _Enough_ ,” Pentecost snaps, and Newt realizes his right hand had let go of the shirt and was only inches away of making a home on Hermann’s nose. He isn’t sure if he’d feel any guilt over it or not.

He contemplates running. He contemplates shaking off Pentecost long enough to swing his arm forward and possibly break Hermann’s nose. He contemplates for less than a second, because he is many things but violent is not one of them (volatile, they say, very volatile). The hands are firm around his arms and he’s still shaking, anger and anxiety building walls in his arteries and veins; he’s on three hours of sleep and eight cups of coffee, he’s in no mood to take shit from anyone, and later he’ll be sorry and keep intestines on his side of the room for a whole day, but for now he can’t. He can’t. He’s on fire, and if he stays, he’s going to explode.

“Fuck this,” he swears, venomous enough to rattle Hermann, and he takes the opening; he forces himself away from Pentecost and stalks towards the door, slams it on his way out, and if he were to die, his last words spoken in gestures would be _fuck you._

-

It’s cold and rain-soaked outside, the streets are wet and squelch under his boots, and best of all, it’s crowded and he can _breathe_.

He doesn’t like large crowds; they push and pull and surround him, and it’s too hard to maneuver when he’s in a rush. But sometimes, sometimes it’s better to be amongst strangers than trapped in a large dome with metal walls and dank, dreary hallways; the city is alive, pulsing with energy and night-crawlers, and these people don’t know him any more than he knows them. It’s a relief, a change, quiet compared to the raging storm inside his head and the tips of his fingers; a ticking time bomb is what he feels like and his countdown grows shorter and shorter every time Hermann snips the wrong wire. He doesn’t regret what happened, not yet, but he will. He always does. The people on the street don’t care if he’s a mess and hasn’t showered in three days, or eaten in four; they don’t care that he shoves his hands in kaiju remains and studies their every movement. They don’t _care_. He has no enemies out here except himself.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? He has no enemies, not really, he hasn’t insanely pissed off anyone since university and that was only because he was broke; Hermann is the closest thing to a rival he has, but it’s not really a rivalry because they’re playing on the same field after the same goal with different methods. It’s a challenge, the way he _needs_ it to be a challenge, and his head is just going in circles trying to figure this all out. He can practically taste the down-swing clinging to him, and he can tell it’s going to be a long, long couple of days. Weeks. Months, maybe? That was bad.

But he’s still _angry_ and has the urge to punch something, mainly a wall or potentially himself, and all the pent-up energy has nowhere to go; he could smoke, but that would require finding a place to buy them, and he has no money on him and hasn’t picked up that habit in over three years. He could find someone to fight, but the last time that happened, he ended up with a black eye and a drawn out excuse to tell those back at the ‘dome. He’s on borrowed time and limited resources and, frankly, it _sucks_.

He manages to wander on his own, passing vendors and dried out bones, until a voice startles him from behind.

“You should wear a coat in this rain,” she says, and Newt is entirely convinced she takes that umbrella whenever she goes outside. She does have a point, however, as a dirty dress shirt over a torn t-shirt is hardly any defense, but that would have meant thinking before disappearing outside. His heart is still beating wildly at the sudden appearance, and he stares at Mako with a blank expression.

“Um,” he says intelligently. Whatever adrenaline he had dissipates and he could probably slump against a wall or on a curb and fall asleep. He’s tired. “Yeah, no, I have one. Somewhere. I think?”

Mako laughs quietly and nods to a pub just a few minutes away; it looks empty and warmer than outside, so he shrugs and follows her, finding some shelter beneath the black umbrella. It’s comfortable, the silence they walk in—easy, familiar. She teaches him Japanese when they have time, and he shows her, up close, what the inside of a kaiju stomach looks like, and over the few years he’s known her, they’ve become friends.

“You’re upset,” she whispers, once they’re settled in a small booth near the back. Mako doesn’t drink and Newt isn’t all that interested in waking up with a hangover tomorrow, so they order water and don’t bother drinking it.

“One of those nights?” he offers her, but she doesn’t buy it. A small quirk of her eyebrow is all she gives though, and he can elaborate or drop it, and she won’t push the matter. He doesn’t want to talk about it because there’s not much to talk about, although he’s starting to regret it.

(whether it’s the argument-fight or not taking the punch, he’s not sure yet.)

She does say, “I do not think he understands you, and you don’t give him a chance to let him.”

“I don’t _need_ to be understood, I just need him to _listen_.”

“Hm,” and he loves her, he does, she’s one of the few people he’d go out on a limb for, but sometimes her silences makes Newt want to drop his head on a table and never wake up. They speak volumes—make him think, and he seriously considers getting wasted if only to avoid the inevitable. And then it strikes him, a lightning bolt straight down his spine, that she already knew what was going on, or he’s that predictable. Probably both. Regardless, they drop it, and she needs to get back to the Shatterdome and overlook the new upgrades to Gipsy Danger’s internal structure. He’s not quite calm, but he’s not ready to drown in one of the puddles outside either, and that’s progress.

They head back together, but his room is nowhere near the tech department for obvious reasons and they reach a split; he tries to smile, she shakes her head.

"You never know when your last day will be, or the people you know and care about—when their last day will be. Why spend so much time fighting with those who are on your side?"

He doesn’t have an answer for her. He never does.

-

In the morning, when it’s damp and cold inside the ‘dome, when it causes his headache to grow worse and his fingers to ache with fatigue, he’ll leave a scribbled message on a coffee cup lid and leave it on the ledge of the chalkboard; Hermann will see it, as he always does, and Newt will come down to the lab to find a mug of blueberry tea sitting on his side of the room. He’ll still feel like shit, his hands won’t work properly, and sleep is the only thing that sounds appealing, but he’ll drink the tea and it’ll warm him up. Hermann won’t say a word.

It’ll be a few days. Newt can feel it in every fiber of his body.

It’s (not) fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> so basically melissa and i have a shitload of headcanons and my goal is to make a really messy series based on these so angst! fluff! disorganized fics! 
> 
> wheezes
> 
> this series is dedicated to melissa bc she's the reason i fell in love with newt and charlie day and silly science bros in the first place!!!! 
> 
> (title from onerepublic's counting stars)


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